The Confrontation of Silence
by FireflyFanatic3x
Summary: After going to his house at night to talk to him, Beckett and Castle end up talking about why he's so upset with her, and now forced to, they both finally admit their feelings for each other... one-shot, 1000 words. Written in anticipation of episode 4x20


**A/N – my first Castle fic so be nice.**

**THEIR LOVE IS SO LEGENDARY I SIMPLY CANNOT! … they break my freakin' heart, and after '47 Seconds' I just …... as this is obviously not going to happen in the next episode, I needed to get this out…**

**Enjoy! ;) (and please review to let me know what you think!)**

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

**The Confrontation of Silence**

"Because you told me you didn't remember!" Castle shouted. He breathed out, a deep, longing sigh as the emotions clouded his mind and all the tension was finally released.

Beckett's face dropped. A dead weight hit the bottom of her stomach and she felt a sharp pain in her chest, feeling as though her heart had stopped as she looked up at him. He knew? Her mind raced, running over everything that had happened between then and now. Then she came to it, and it suddenly dawned on her, her mistake – getting angry with Bobby, a suspect in a bombing investigation about trauma. Or was it hiding the truth in the beginning that was her mistake?

She'd come here, to his apartment looking for answers, but now she had them she wasn't so sure. Did she really want this fight, this confrontation where she would have to admit what she wasn't ready to?

"Castle … I …" she begain, looking him straight in the eye, gripping the chair beside her tight as she suddenly found it difficult to breathe properly.

"You told me that you didn't remember anything after you got shot, but you did, didn't you! _'I got shot in the chest and I remember every second of it!'_" he recalled, "I confessed to you that I was in love with you, and you told me you didn't remember it! Why would you lie about that?" he said, a dark and painful expression in his eyes as he finished, quietly, whispering, unable to talk normally, "You know I really thought we had something, Kate, I really … I did. And I was willing to wait. But if you don't love me … what's the point?" He averted his gaze, unable to look her in the eye any longer.

She took a deep breath, preparing herself for the long overdue explanation, knowing really, she'd never be ready. "Castle, I … I'm sorry I lied to you, I –"

"Not good enough." he interjected, looking up at her again.

_That look_. Rather unexpected tears began to well up in Beckett's eyes as she looked back at him, seeing so much pain behind those deep brown eyes. She'd hurt him … again. She knew that, but she'd do anything now to take the pain away. What could she say?…

'_Not good enough'_

"I told you that I loved you." he said, "I finally admitted it to myself, I was finally ready to tell you … I thought you were dying, and I confessed to you why I've stayed, all these years. When you told me that you didn't remember, it broke my heart, Kate. I thought – _she's forgotten, it's over. I can't build up the courage to tell her again_ – it changed everything. And now you tell me that you _do_ remember. I'm sorry, Kate, but sorry isn't good enough, not this time."

"Look, I know you're angry, and I know you're upset, you have every right to be, I hurt you, I lied and things got … messy." Beckett replied, her words hurried and desperate as she tried to convince him to stay, to listen, to hear her out. She had a lot of explaining to do. She felt a lump in her throat as she spoke again, and her voice began to shake, "Castle … You told me how you felt … I'd just got shot! I wasn't ready for that, I just needed some time …"

"You had your time, remember? Three months as I recall!" he said, getting a little angry, feeling the pain pull at his heartstrings as the conversation went on. "But 'I'm sorry' isn't good enough, because this isn't about the fact that you lied. It's _why_ you lied. If you don't love me, the what's the point? We both know how we feel … I know where you stand now. And I can accept that, I'm ready to move on … I just want you to know where we stand."

"Castle I didn't lie to you about it because I don't love you!" she said, as a tear fell from her eye and slid down her cheek. Her breathing became rushed as the emotions she was trying so desperately to hold back came crashing through. "I lied because I … I … feel the same way. Okay? I love you!" she cried, as the tears now streamed down her cheeks and she lost all control, "I'd just been shot, I was still in a relationship with Josh, and everything with my mom's case … I couldn't deal with it! For my whole life, I'd let my mother's murder define me, it's become who I am. But when you came … when you walked into my life, Rick, you showed me something different! You … you made me happy! I started smiling again and I didn't notice how or when it happened, but one day I turned and around and I was in love with you! I have all these walls up inside me, that aren't going to come down just like that! It's why I've never had a good relationship before that lasted, because … because of these walls. And I lied to you, because … Rick, I'm afraid. I'm scared to fall in love and to be with someone like that … and … I was worried that you weren't going to wait for me."

Castle stopped. As she finished talking he noticed the presence of a tear on his cheek too. It pained him so much to hear her say that, to see her like this. "Kate …" he whispered, at a loss as to what to really say. "I'm ready to wait. I will wait as long as you need … but why couldn't you just tell me that before?"

Beckett paused for a moment, before replying, "Because … I don't know, Castle, I just … I couldn't deal with it at the time, and everything just go so … _complicated_."

And now he understood. He could see why she lied – she _was_ scared. He had only ever see her cry like this once – when she'd had to shoot her mother's killer, depriving herself of any answers about who the man behind her mother's murder was. Did her feelings for her cause such intense emotions, that they reached the same level as her mother's murder? He couldn't say how much it hurt him to know he caused her that much anguish.

After a long moment of silence between them, Castle moved forward and took her in his arms. He pulled her forward, lifting her chin gently and kissed her. As they pulled apart, he looked down at her, gazing into her eyes, smiling as little. "So you've got problems, baggage and walls you've put up … we can work through them. But at the end of the day – I love you. You love me. That doesn't really sound so complicated, does it?"

Beckett looked up into his eyes, gazing as she looked through him, into him. So this was it … love. Like she'd never loved any man before. And she knew he loved her, she'd seen how much he cared for her. The lying was over. The silence, the games, it was all done. They were in love, and that's all that mattered for now. He was willing to work through her issues, he was going to fight for her, he was willing to wait … so maybe it wasn't so complicated after all.

She smiled a little as she wiped her cheeks, wiping away the tears and all that pain. "No …" she said, "I guess not."


End file.
